Futile
by Asynca
Summary: If House had visited Wilson immediately after the events in Merry Little Christmas. Contains spoilers for this episode. Somewhat slashy.


FUTILE

Asynca

Something startled him awake; he had a moment of primal panic as he reoriented himself and recognized the light-fitting as that of his hotel room. His hand, which had been tucked fitfully under his thigh, now buzzed dully with numbness as he swatted at the display of his alarm clock. 02:58, he made out, squinting against the brightness of the numerals.

When he pushed himself to sit, hoping to solve the mystery of why he was abruptly awake after four Jim Beams, there was – probably another – hesitant knock on the door. Three shadows – two thick, one slender – blocked the light flooding from underneath.

House.

Ignoring his nagging bladder, he shrugged off the coverlet, shoved himself upright, and staggered toward the doorway.

It wasn't until conscious thought became accessible to him that he stopped the handle in mid-turn. It shifted heavily; someone was resting weight on the other side of it. He let his hand fall to his side, where it smoothed his pyjama pants.

What was he going to do, just let House in? Engage in some more self-depricative begging – or perhaps, they could just have a screaming match and get the whole floor involved. As happy as management were with his long term patronage – he wasn't sure if they would tolerate that sort of behaviour on Christmas Eve—Day, nearly, he realized.

The door buckled a little as he rested his crinkled forehead against it.

It would be so easy to open the door, he reflected, staring downward at the light spilling onto his carpet.

"You… don't have to let me in," Gentle, ragged. Breathed more than spoken – and right up against the wood. Reading his mind.

Wilson's lips parted to acknowledge him – but after a moment of consideration, he pressed them shut. Anything that slipped through them would surely be comforting – and enough to send tumbling the precarious house of cards he and Cuddy had so painstakingly constructed.

It was still too vivid; House's crumpled form in front of the kitchen; the contents of House's chemical cocktail-turned-emetic spilt from his stomach. God, the way his heart had pounded when he'd seen House…

A brief window the space of a microsecond, and he'd fantasized about finally being free of House's parasitic attention. That was before he'd contemplated what being 'free' meant – no House, ever again. And really, who else would buy him toxic South American flora in a garish terracotta pot, and announce at the top of his voice – in front of his then wife – that due to the toxin, the plant was referred as 'the Widower'? He knew the alternative all too well from his pre-House adulthood; baseball games and expensive restaurant dinners with rich, arrogant professionals who clapped each other on back and saluted their successfulness, masculinity and supposed intelligence with expensive alcohol. A bleak eternity of being fawned over by people who either wanted to marry him or be associated with him for their own benefit.

In opposition to logic, he flushed with anger. He could have strangled House right there, he had thought. Or smashed his head into the floor. Or chugged the rest of that bourbon on the coffee table himself. He'd felt sick enough on sight of that prescription bottle to contribute his own dinner to the Pro Art on House's floorboards.

"He backed out."

Zero – nothing. Wilson's heart didn't even pick up an extra beat a minute. It was inevitable Tritter would back out, in a way – why would anything ever work out for House?

It was of hardly any consequence that House hadn't died yet, then. House wouldn't last five seconds in jail without being beaten to a pulp due to his incapacity to keep his big trap shut. Maybe they could put him in his own cell, Wilson decided, cite the mental health of everyone around him as a reason for solitary confinement—

"Wilson…I…" He could have measured every millimetre of wood between them by the warmth of House's breath. "You were right," he finished raggedly, squeezing the last word through a tightening larynx.

Not that it ever mattered when you needed it to, Wilson thought bitterly, tracing his fingers along the bevels of the door.

"I'll start the program on Monday."

Knowing House, that meant two full days of alcohol and narcotic poisoning that would test his liver to the limits as a last salutation to the good old medicated lifestyle. Wilson wondered if House planned to drag him along for his dual function of being both a drinking buddy and a walking, joking CPR unit.

He realised that was the point when he probably should have acknowledged House, only when the floor creaked, and House's extendable cane clinked in a way that indicated defeat and departure.

Before he had completely realized what his somewhat intoxicated, sluggish body was doing, the door had managed to fling itself open, exposing him to a halo of 100-watt brilliance and a slouching shadow. "House—" He called after it, blinking as he tried to force his irises to adjust.

The figure paused – a full trench coat and symmetrically hung scarf flapping against him as he turned back toward Wilson. Wilson could see House's throat dip as he swallowed.

It was awful, the figure House cut. Sallow eye-sockets filled with resigning, heavy eyeballs that could barely look at him for a moment without falling back to the floor. Scruff, like ivy, had made short work of his chin, neck and cheeks – which were hollow, and moist. That slouch, most of all. House had simply towered over him when they'd first met.

"Where will you go?" Wilson wondered aloud. Not back to his own apartment, surely; that bourbon bottle hadn't been empty when Wilson had left.

House exhaled, eyes averted, tongue darting out to wet his lips. Rather than verbalize a reply, he just dropped his chin.

The image of House drinking himself to death on Christmas Eve was not something he wanted to confront a second time.

House would definitely be the death of both of them; and struggling against that seemed to be the catalyst for everything that went wrong with his life – even if it _was_ always the strong thing and the right thing to do.

A defeated sigh allowed Wilson the illusion that he may have been able to escape that fate. "Come on," He gestured back inside his hotel room with a jerk of his head.

House's eyes touched his for a moment, lips parting in disbelief, "You shouldn't," he murmured, mostly to himself.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Wilson pressed his lips into a flat line, "Get in here before I wake up and come to my senses."

House's gait was more forced than usual; stiff, laboured steps another indication that his liver had yet to metabolise all of the oxycodone he'd ingested. He brushed against Wilson as he shifted through the doorway; a pervasive odour of Listerine and Old Spice allowing him to realize that House had made a conscious effort to clean himself up. For Tritter, probably, though. Not Wilson.

House stopped in the centre of the room, looking hesitantly around him

"I'll get you some water," Wilson offered, more as an excuse to finally use to toilet than an actual benevolent gesture. As he ran water through the plastic tumbler in the bathroom, scrubbing at it with his fingers, he doubted he'd ever be able to offer to help House again without Cameron's spiel about impure motives nagging in his ears.

House had only advanced perhaps another two feet into the room by the time Wilson emerged with the glass, having turned toward the window to watch the snow flurries falling against the panes.

It was endearing, somehow, seeing this uncertainty, before he remembered his helplessness against it. If House had been any of his wives, a strong hug, some hair stroking, and perhaps some cryptic anecdote of personal strength would suffice. But, it was serendipity with a well-developed sense of irony that delivered had unto Wilson the only person on the planet who could not be consoled by reassurance.

"I took thirty of them in four hours," House reflected, as if Wilson wasn't present, "I should be dead."

"—three years ago, if your liver is anything to go by. Besides, you vomited most of them up," Wilson commented, flatly. Nudging House's arm with the tumbler, he passed it into shaking hand, narrowly resisting the urge to help House lift the glass to his lips. He drank deeply, hopefully indicating that he'd expelled most of the contents of his stomach since Wilson's visit.

"Thanks," House murmured as he finished the water. Instead of handing the empty glass back to Wilson, he staggered forwards to the desk and placed it there himself. He then shrugged his coat off, revealing a damp t-shirt underneath. Crinkled from a clothes hamper, Wilson observed, and different to the clothes House had been wearing whilst spreading his bile all in front of his kitchen.

Wilson was rarely out of things to say to House; in fact, one of the things he had appreciated most about their relationship was the complete freedom of dialogue they enjoyed with each other. House was – or had been – sharp, and the perfect adversary for a verbal sparring.

Now… Wilson felt as if everything had struggled into a knot inside him. There were so many things he wanted to yell through House; so many jokes he wished they were sharing right now – smiling, laughing, watching crappy Christmas specials on mute and improvising their own dialogue for the characters. Pretending House wasn't about to go to jail and lose his medical license forever. House was right, in a way – he should've just died on his floor.

He tuned back toward Wilson, eyes searching, "You look like hell," He remarked at last.

"Well, makes sense," Wilson exhaled, still regarding him, "I'm in it."

House nodded once, eyes back to the floor, and guarded, as if he expected Wilson to take that as a green light to lay into him. As if Wilson had the energy to construct some sort of coherent lecture and deliver it to him now.

"I just want to sleep," Wilson realized aloud, and immediately felt it would be the best conclusion to past six months. A beautiful, semi-inebriated sleep – and a powerful desire to do so with House curled quietly around him. And he was too fucking exhausted to care if House knew, either.

"It's queen-sized," Wilson had expected it to sound more like a cryptic suggestion than a demand; but he wasn't entirely sure how House interpreted it.

Eyes met his, intense – far more so than he'd seen since House's arrival – as if he were waiting for Wilson to further explain himself. In the absence of that, he merely dipped his gaze and began working off his sneakers.

House had automatically headed for the opposite side of the bed as they climbed diffidently under the covers in tandem; no fights like with Julie about who got the right side of the bed. That Wilson had dared to challenge her for it had even come up on 'the list' of ranted reasons why James Was The Wrong Man For Julie during settlement. Perhaps serendipity wasn't entirely cruel, after all.

House should probably be sleeping on his side in case of aspiration, Wilson thought as he felt around the wall above his head for a light switch. He just couldn't be bothered mentioning it – House would know, anyway.

As Wilson's eyes adjusted to the darkness once again, it was plainly obvious House was watching him. He turned his head enough to make eye contact, which House apparently took as a cue to speak.

"Both Judas and Jesus ended up dead, you know."

Rather than engage with him, Wilson couldn't even find the motivation to conjure a snappy way to tell him to shut up, "Not tonight, House."

"You need to understand what you're doing, letting me—"

"House," Seriously. "I just want to sleep peacefully and forget how much I hate you. I don't want your morbid speculations… or reality checks, or whatever," It was true, but he hadn't meant it to sound that harsh. "Just…" He searched for a way to mitigate the blow, "Just… come over here, will you?"

He could almost literally hear the cogs in House's brain turning as he snaked an arm under House's neck. House's body should have stiffened, or withdrawn – but, surprisingly, it didn't.

Instead, he rolled easily along Wilson's bicep, until his hip was resting against Wilson's thigh. Breath on his cheek, Wilson smelt more Listerine, and a very faint, but still perceivable spicy shadow of bourbon. A nose touched his cheekbone; wiry stubble drawing lightly along his jaw.

Lips pressed weakly beside his mouth.

Wilson exhaled, allowing his eyes to fall shut as the weight of an arm settled along the base of his ribcage.

"Stacy said it, you know," House murmured, tickling Wilson's neck, " 'I don't know if it's more exhausting to love you, or to hate you'."

Definitely the former, Wilson mused as he drifted off, and hoped that sleep would offer some respite.


End file.
